Back To Back
by vechtkoe
Summary: Angel visits the company psychiatrist. Comedy, drama, sex and horror ensue.


**Back To Back**

Rating: R for some graphic sex and some f-words ('fuck' for example)

Pairing: Spike/Angel

Other characters: Fred, Gunn, Danny the marine demon, Wesley, Lorne, Harmony and a few other less familiar faces.

Timeline: Still a little bit before A Hole In The World.

Summary: Angel visits the company psychiatrist. Comedy, drama, sex and horror ensue.

* * *

Flicking through magazines is not the same as reading them. Angel is too nervous to read. So he just flicks.

To the point that he only notices after three minutes that he's been blankly staring right through the pages of a gay magazine, the front (and back) cover clearly visible to the other occupants of the waiting room.

He frowns and puts the magazine down as casually as possible, stares at the tips of his shoes for a few seconds, then risks a quick scan of the room. The four other people all appear human, save for the occasional horn. All of them are either playing with their phone, reading a magazine, twiddling their thumbs or smiling at him. What is that guy smiling at? Yeah, now he looks away. But I gotcha, buster. Gotcha catching me with Out Magazine.

Angel looks at the clock. It's only been fifteen minutes. Does time move faster or slower for the immortal? The immortal, as in the kind of people that live forever. His kind of people. Not The Immortal. That guy doesn't care about time.

The door opens.

"Mr Angel?" a pretty, young brunette nods a welcoming smile at him.

"Yeah." he answers quietly, standing up.

The office looks less minimalistic than Angel had imagined. For some reason, he had expected framed ink-blot tests lining the walls.

"The doctor will be with you in a moment. Just get comfortable." the girl says in a pretty posh British accent. "Can I get you a cup of tea?"

Angel sits down in the least comfortable of the various seats. "No, thank you."

The girl nods with a smile, then halts and her golden brown eyes suddenly widen. "I meant blood! So so sorry! Erm, we have the usual Wolfram & Hart variety, plus the Tropical Variety pack. The Malayan tapir is really tangy and rich in iron…"

"It's alright." Angel is a little embarrassed at her embarrassment, so he gives her an apologetic smile that hopefully makes her feel better. "Wait, do you have antelope?" he blurts out just when she's turning away from him.

"I… don't think the antelope is tropical." she smiles. "But I'll see what I can do."

She leaves the room. Angel catches himself staring at her butt.

A couple of minutes pass. Angel looks out through the UV-filtering windows, his eyes finding a bit of peace in following the tiny cars that are driving through the hills in the distance.

The door opens. "Good afternoon, Angel." a surprisingly young-looking man walks in, a folder in one hand, extending the other to his patient.

Angel gets up and shakes the doctor's hand firmly. "Hello, doctor."

"My name is Doctor Saavedra. I see you've made yourself uncomfortable. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer something cushier?"

"Thanks, I'm good." Angel assures him, shifting in his terrible chair to make himself appear a little comfier.

Doctor Saavedra smiles. His hair is a nondescript colour between brown and blonde, neatly trimmed. He wears a plain white shirt and simple blue jeans. His shoes are probably the most expensive thing on him. They look a good brand of leather.

"Call me Hal if you like."

Hal sits down across from Angel, in a nice-looking fauteuil, then flops the folder onto the spotless glass table inbetween them. "Dreams."

Angel looks back at him.

"You've been having dreams that bother you. Why?" Dr Saavedra asks earnestly.

"Well," Angel starts, "It's…"

He stares down at the glass table, only the doctor's reflection visible in its shiny spotless world.

"What is your opinion on romantic involvement in a… work environment?" Angel shrugs, as if he finds the question preposterous himself.

The doctor represses a slight frown. "I am sorry, but I must know… Am I under investigation?"

Angel does not repress a frown. "What?" The image of the pretty brunette pops in his mind. "Oh! Ha ha. Nooo. It's about me, Doctor Saavedra. Uh, Hal."

"Had to ask. Heads roll easily here, he he." the doctor smiles, a little uneasy still. "So, the dreams. What are they? Nightmares?"

"No, they're not." Angel hesitates. "They're… you know… intimate."

The doctor picks up a green/white coloured pen and strikes something out on a form lying on the small table beside his chair. "Family?"

"No!" Angel looks mildly horrified. "I mean physically. Intimate."

"Right, right." the doctor strikes something else out. "Someone you know?"

"Yes."

"Someone you're fond of? Why does that bother you?"

"I never dreamt about.. this person before. Not like this. Not lately."

A little scribbling from the doctor's pen. "Can you walk me through one of these dreams?"

A knock at the door.

"Come in." the doctor says.

The girl comes in with a small silver tray, the scent of warm blood quickly finding Angel's nostrils.

She sets it down on the table. Besides the mug of blood, a cup of herbal tea sits on the tray.

"Thank you." Angel says.

"It's Malayan tapir. I ordered antelope, but for now this should keep you warm." the girl smiles and leaves the room again.

"Do you take anything with that?" the doctor asks.

"Well, it's… blood." Angel says.

"There's otter." the doctor points a tea spoon at a set of small sachets on the tray.

Angel perks up at this and tears open one of the sachets, spilling the brown powdery contents into his mug.

"So, would you be alright with telling me an example of these dreams?" the doctor crosses his legs, saucer and cup in hand. "Just the rough outlines, if you like. Details optional."

"Well," Angel blows at his mug, "Have you ever seen From Dusk Till Dawn?"

In the canteen, Spike and Fred are playing on a loud Dukes Of Hazard-themed pinball machine. Spike's vampire reflexes make the machine go "Yeehawww" a lot. But Fred's clinical eye and precision nicely make up for her humanity, and she is only a few hundred points behind.

Gunn is standing on the side, cross-armed and following the contest intently.

Spike focuses all his skills and killer instincts on the silver ball that is rapidly rolling down towards the two flippers… and with a grunt of great passion he bangs both buttons, flicking the ball well into the deep end. The machine goes bleeping crazy and blinks big numbers at Spike. "Yeah! Stick that up your Daisy Dukes!"

Gunn looks amused. "Don't get too cocky. She can still get back atcha."

Fred chips in: "I'm in hot pursuit! Gonna cuff ya and stuff ya!"

"Dear god, you actually watched that crap, didn't you?" Spike frowns as the machine spits the ball out again, sending it rolling dangerously close towards the little space in the middle that the flippers cannot reach. "No no nonono NO!" He pounds both buttons to the point of breaking, brushing the ball briefly upward with the tip. The ball makes a slow little arc, after which it calmly rolls down again, past the flippers and into the hole.

"Ohhhhh!" Gunn exclaims.

"My turn!" Fred steps forward giddily after Spike smacks the machine and steps back sulking.

Danny the marine demon joins them in watching Fred rack up her score. "Looks like you let a surefire victory slip there, buddy." He flabbily pats Spike on the shoulder with his webbed hand.

Spike shrugs. "She can have the battle. The war is mine."

Danny grins his long thin fangs bare in appreciation of the vampire's combativeness, while the pinball machine bleeps ecstatically and Fred squeaks her victory.

"By the way, Angel is talking to a hypnotist about your naval mating ritual." Danny says and sips on his coke.

Spike incredulously turns his head to look at Danny. "What… Hypnotist? Naval? What?"

"So what you're trying to say…" Doctor Saavedra ventures.

"He drank it off her foot." Angel says. "But like I said, those are not the dreams that worry me."

"Tell me about the recent ones now." the doctor says, scribbling briefly.

Angel sighs and sits up. "They're not very different. Just more real. And they end differently."

"How is that?"

"I always end up in… space or something." Angel frowns, grasping for the right words.

"Floating… in space?" asks Saavedra.

"Yeah. Whenever I try to leave, I have to open a door. But every door just leads to some kind of void."

"A void." the doc nods and pens this down. "Now, why is it that you want to leave the dream?"

Angel thinks in silence, stares at his mug.

Shrugging with shoulders and eyebrows, he finally mumbles: "I just run out of time." Suddenly uncomfortable with his answer, he adds "I dunno."

"You don't have enough time in your dream?"

Angel pauses again, then speaks with more certainty. "It's like I've got unfinished business in the dream, but also outside the dream. And I don't know which of the two I must resolve first."

"Very good." Saavedra smiles. "Another question. Are all the dreams set in foreign countries?"

Angel blinks, then looks upward and mentally goes through his recollections. "Huh. Yeah, pretty much."

"Do you have fond memories of these places?"

Angel had already started smiling before Saavedra asked the question, but the smile fades quickly into a pensive semi-frown again. "Mostly just business."

The doctor suppresses an eyebrow raise. "The person in your dream used to accompany you on these business trips?"

"Sure. Sometimes." Angel nods. "Pretty often."

"Do you wish you could have stayed there longer?"

A look of irritation passes over Angel 's face. "How? I wasn't going to make him – " He stops, realising his slip.

Back in the canteen, Spike is interrogating Danny a few yards away from the pinball noise.

"So it's a shrink, not a hypnotist." he confirms, sounding a bit relieved.

"Yeah, I thought..." Danny says. "I always go see either of the two and the effect is pretty much equal. Sorry."

Spike looks at him questioningly. Danny shrugs: "Sure, I need a hand too sometimes. We all have our humans."

"Right, right. And did you get a name?"

Danny's black eyes stare at him. "My name?"

Spike sighs and does an eye-roll. "Of the psychiatrist, you barnacle."

"Oh! Ha ha. Yes, I think it started with a hiss."

"An S?" Spike leans his face closer.

"Yeah, something like that." Danny scratches his scales.

"And the rest?"

"Aavedra." Danny says immediately.

Spike scoffs a smile. "Thanks, Griffin."

"I'm Danny." says Danny, but Spike is already on his way out of the canteen.

Meanwhile, in Doctor Saavedra's office: "You're not exactly the first person to have feelings for someone of your own gender."

"Yeah, I just don't really swing that way." Angel says flatly. "I mean, everybody's gone there at some point, right? Doesn't pin you down one way or another."

"A good friend of mine says: 'Do what thou wilt.'" says Saavedra.

"Yeah, I remember that guy. Met him in New York."

Saavedra smiles. "He still lives there. Anyway, is the fact that he is a man one of the reasons why you're uncomfortable about the dreams?"

Angel shakes his head. "No."

"Good." Saavedra scribbles something. "Is he a vampire too?"

"Uh…" Angel starts, aware that his hesitation already answers the question, so: "Yeah."

The doctor smiles again. "Would you call yourself happy, Angel?"

"Not… perfectly."

"Would you be happier if you had more time for doing business trips with your partner?"

"I don't have the time."

"Suppose if you did? If somebody gave you that kind of time and space?"

Angel hides his mouth behind his fist and mutters "There are more important things than my spare time."

"Can't you do these important things together with your partner too?"

"That's classified." Angel tries not to stutter. "I mean, not that he works here. Oh, for the love of…" He breathes out his exasperation through his nose. "How do you do that? You drugged me, didn't you?" He glares at the mug of now lukewarm tapir blood.

"No." Saavedra grins. "No need."

Wesley picks up on an unusual kind of urgency in the way Spike brushes past him in the corridor.

He turns his head. "Spike?"

"Got a bus to catch, mate." Spike keeps marching down the hallway.

Over a hundred years ago, five thousand miles away, Angel knows this dead-end alley. And he knows the sound of angry folk that are after him. And he knows where he is and who is there at his side.

"Believe me. This will work and it will be fun." a demon-faced Spike grins at him, as a mob of hulking Fyonih demons pours into the alley. "Just don't let go."

Fyonih aren't the stupidest of demon kinds, but once they are on the hunt and they are in a pack – which they always are – all caution goes overboard and all they want to do is stomp and break and rip apart.

The two of them stand together, hand in hand, as the horde comes roaring at them with bonecrushing directness. Spike grins. He doesn't even have to say a word. Angelus and he know exactly when to step apart from one another, allowing Spike's new killing toy to unfold for business.

With an amazing combination of surgeon-like precision and bloodthirsty delight, they run forward along the sides of the alleyway, the nearly invisible razor-sharp wire held taut between them, slicing clean through necks, faces, foreheads or even torsos, depending on the height of the individual Fyonih demons.

The vengeful roars of the horde become howls of terror and pain, the joy of their brutality snuffed out by subtle cunning. They know the only blood colouring this alley in Saint Petersburg will be their own.

Only a minute later do Angelus and Spike reach the main street, the wire dripping and the both of them racing with adrenaline. And when they turn their heads to face each other this time, they see they share the same ecstatic open-mouthed grin, eyes perfect and on fire.

"That… was brilliant." Spike says.

"Piano wire. What sweet music it makes." Angelus smiles. "Have to hand it to you for using it like that."

The two look back at the alley, which is strewn with demon corpses and one Fyonih that is still stumbling around mindless and confused with the top of its head sliced off.

"Did we ever find out what their problem was?" wonders Spike.

"My Russian isn't very good. Maybe I said something that offended them when I was trying to tell them their mothers' faces would make a fine cushion for my scrotum." says Angelus.

"Touchy." Spike shrugs. "Let's go get some more locals. Around this hour, their blood has that nice vodka edge to it."

"Hold that thought." Angelus says as he walks over to the stumbling Fyonih, grasps its head and gives it a well-practised spin, snapping its neck.

Some hours later, the two are sitting in a bar, Spike's legs propped up on the table. Most of the rest of the furniture has been smashed, as has the rest of the patronage. Bodies, male and female, lie about scattered.

"Damn it. I really meant to keep a few of them alive but incapacitated." Angelus says guiltily. "Got too carried away."

"Nothing wrong with that." says Spike, his lips red. "Not every slaughter has to be like a game of chess, Liam."

"Maybe." Angelus muses. "I just feel like we didn't make the most out of these poor swine."

"Well, the night is still young. So stop being old." Spike gets up. "I'm gonna punch you now."

Angelus keeps his eyes on Spike as he approaches him. "Now you really are about to bite off more than you can chew."

Spike takes a mock fighting stance. "Punch coming up. Punchy punch punch. Hitting your face in 10… 9… 8… You might as well try and have a swing first, because I'm definitely doing this!"

"Better make it count." Angelus doesn't look like he's making a move.

"Oh, I'm counting." Spike bounces from one foot to the other. "5… 4…"

The countdown doesn't get finished because Angelus kicks his own wooden chair out from underneath himself, takes it in both hands and swings it at Spike, who only just manages to block it with his arm, splintering the chair into pieces. Angelus pounces on Spike and gets him down on the floor.

Doctor Saavedra puts his pen down. "Are you afraid you would fall into old killing habits if you give in to him?"

Angel lets this sink in for a while. He feels strangely calm and elated, still not believing how much he's letting out. Could Spike make him perfectly happy?

"I think so." he says, baffled by the simplicity of it.

The doctor nods understandingly. "So you lose yourself in your calling. It distracts you from what could have been. Or could be."

A miserable feeling of despair washes over Angel as he fully understands this. "So the empty space behind the exit doors… is my work?"

"Not necessarily. It could be a wall put up by your own desires, in order to keep you in the dream."

Angel nods acceptingly, pauses for a second before he asks "Could I… could I let myself be happy in these dreams… without being happy in the waking world?"

Saavedra answers with a question: "Have you never dreamt that you're happy?"

Not daring to nibble at the bait of hope, Angel tries to figure out if his own definition of perfect happiness matches anything he felt in the recent dreams.

Picking up on this, the doctor adds "Could it be that you have lowered your tolerance for your own happiness so much that you can't tell what it is anymore?"

Angel ponders this when the door is loudly and abruptly smashed off its hinges. Spike steps into the room, looking ready for trouble. "Session's over. Get away from him." he says with calm menace.

The other door opens and the brunette peeks in worriedly for a second, sees Spike, then quickly closes the door again.

If Saavedra is at all jolted, he does a professional job at hiding it. "This is a private meeting."

Angel has stood up from his chair. "Spike, what is this?"

Spike strides up to him and leans in to apparently check Angel's pupils. "This is me saving your brain. Because this tosser here," he points at the doctor, "is out to reap your mind."

Angel groans. "Spike, I'm not being reaped. Until right now I was really getting somewhere. So just put the door back and leave."

"He's got you right where he wants you, you plonker! I'm not going anywhere until you snap out of it."

"Well, then why don't you have a seat?" the doctor says.

Five minutes later.

"Of course it's about my mum! For god's sake, she even had the same name as the Slayer! Got Oedipus written all over it." Spike scoffs in exasperation as he reclines in the comfortable armchair and lights a cigarette. "Doesn't take a genius. Really, what do Wolfram & Hart pay you for?"

Doctor Saavedra smiles patiently. "I never said that that is all you are, Spike. But it's good that you're open about this. It's a very healthy attitude."

Angel looks annoyed at Spike, feeling his own chair become more uncomfortable by the second. "I was just about to open up." he moans.

Spike turns to him. "Well, we're all ears, mate. Lead us into fairytale land."

Saavedra interrupts: "Spike, is there a reason you act so aggressively towards what Angel might have to say?"

"Yeah. My mum." Spike sniggers.

Angel is outraged: "You're being defensive!"

"Well, yeah. I came in here to defend your big impressionable head." Spike says. "In fact, I still intend to do that. Soon." He turns back to the doctor. "So what do you reckon is his problem, doc?"

Angel throws up his hands in despair.

Saavedra says: "In a sense, his problem is you."

"Finally!" Angel calls out.

"To be exact, he feels that you are unattainable." adds the doctor.

"What?" cries Angel incredulously, wanting to find support in Spike's eyes in a joint mocking of the doctor's diagnosis, but not quite daring to look. "What do you mean? I can... I can attain him! He just doesn't know when he's being attained!"

Spike actually has fallen a bit silent. Angel finally glances at him and he can see that Spike's thoughts are wandering.

"Or maybe..." Spike finally speaks, "... you had me all along and then got stuck."

"I got stuck?" Angel responds. "I'm the one who made you! And then you went along your own merry way, endangering the rest of us while you were at it." Then the first part of Spike's sentence starts translating in Angel's head and his features soften. "I never had you."

"Like fuck you didn't." Spike says. "The only thing you didn't have was a life."

"If we had gone along your path, we indeed would not have had our lives anymore." Angel scowls.

"I'm here, aren't I?" Spike shrugs. "Admittedly only recently in a corporeal form, but I was never the one leaving anybody behind."

Suddenly the remaining door in the office swings open and the brunette barges in with a stake gun, which she furiously aims at Spike's chest. "You! Get the fuck out of this session! Pick a number if you really, really must!"

The room is quiet for two seconds. Then Angel and Spike burst into relieved, heart-aching and eventually tearful laughter. Doctor Saavedra looks on with fascination and starts scribbling feverishly onto his notepad.

The brunette lowers her weapon and sighs. "You're still paying for that door, blondie."

"I'm sorry, pet." Spike says, still in shakes and giggles. With cobra-like quickness, he snatches the stake gun out of her hands and sits back, leisurely aiming the weapon at Doctor Saavedra. "Add this to the bill as well. If you really, really must." he says to the brunette, not taking his eyes off the doc.

Saavedra looks shifty now, giving a pleading look to the brunette, then to Angel.

The brunette starts taking a backwards step towards the door, but Spike stops her: "Wait here, love. Unless you think I can't stake Dr Phibes and snap your neck in the same second without getting out of this very comfy chair."

She decides to stay, shrugging a bit of an apology at the doctor, then casually leaning back against the wall, arms crossed.

"Clever girl." Spike says. "Now, doctor, will you open up to us or do we have to do it for you?"

Saavedra opens his mouth, closes it, then seems to regain some composure. "Of course. Tell me what you want to know. And call me Hal."

"I'll call you lunch if you don't cut it with the smarties. What do the people upstairs want you to get out of Angel?"

Angel doesn't feel as if he's been hypnotised or otherwise suggested. But he's letting Spike ride this one out anyway, so he just gives Doctor Saavedra an inquisitive raise of the brow.

"First, all that has been said remains within these four walls." the doctor begins. "And of course the Senior Partners have an interest in the CEO running their company being of sound mind. They know that working for Wolfram & Hart can be a stressful job, which can really chew people up. I'm here to help prevent that."

The brunette interrupts: "If that's true, then why haven't you given me that raise yet?"

Saavedra shoots her a look, then continues: "The past keeps catching up with you guys, no matter how hard you try to escape it. And I believe that this part of your past is one you should have no reason to run from. You're two sides of the same coin. Both of you have abandonment and rejection issues, which you act out on each other."

Spike cuts in: "I would love to see your file on us, doc. And I would love to fill in the numerous blanks that are in it. Because no matter how much you know about us..." He leans in and spells it out coldly: "You don't know us."

"But I know enough to help you know yourselves and each other better." Saavedra says. "It's in the company's interest, it's in your interest, and it's in my interest because I work here. I'm not going to pretend that my heart aches for you. You're old and smart enough to see through that rhetoric. I just provide a service. And I do like to help." He sits back in his seat with a sigh. "So let me help, please. Everything remains private, like I said. Nothing gets spilled. I give you my word and soul on it. Or my life, which is in your hands right now anyway. Rest assured I don't have the means, or the will, to do any harm to either of you."

Spike and Angel exchange a look.

"Please? Angel? Really, I've got nothing. Tie me to my chair if it helps. Not that you should. Except if it makes you guys more comfortable. Right?"

Spike lowers the stake gun, but keeps it handy.

"What have you got for us, Hal?" Angel says.

Saavedra breathes a sigh of relief. "I have memories. Your memories. Well, I don't have them as such, but I can open your minds for you, so you can lay out the history between the two of you. Compare notes, if you will."

"Putting our minds in the Wolfram & Hart memory blender?" Spike scoffs. "Sure, where do I sign up?"

"It's a non-invasive process. Nothing goes in. I just... Allow me to demonstrate." Saavedra starts getting up. Spike immediately aims the stake gun at him again. "Please?" Saavedra gestures towards the brunette.

"Go ahead then." Spike says.

The brunette slowly walks forward. Saavedra rises from his chair, walks up to her and rests his fingers on her forehead.

A swirl of light appears to be pulled out of the girl's head by the doctor's fingers, and with a gracefully practised hand maneuver, he draws the light out into a frame in mid-air. Angel and Spike watch as images start to appear.

A little dark-haired girl is standing in a queue with lots of grown-ups. She looks painfully bored of waiting around. So with all her might, she smacks the buttocks of the man in front of her. The man jumps and turns to look at her, astonished.

"I thought it was my dad." the brunette winces. "But yeah, true story."

Spike smiles sympathetically.

"Why don't you do him first?" Angel suggests.

The doctor waves the frame away, sending little embers of light floating through the room. "I can do that. I don't have to do the both of you simultaneously. Whatever works for you."

"Ah!" Spike spreads his arms out indignantly, thereby waving the stake gun in the direction of Angel, who shrinks back reflexively. "Guess who's being volunteered for mind experiments again! I have a better idea: Angel goes first."

Angel looks hurt and starts to say something.

"Fine." Spike says. "Keep an eye on this, will you?" He hands the stake gun to Angel and steps forward. "So, where are we going today, doc?"

"Going through memories is a little like browsing a computer for me." says Saavedra. He places his fingers on Spike's forehead and concentrates. "Whether you realise it or not, you categorise your experiences. Good times, sad times, confusing times, and so on. Memories often overlap across several of these. For instance, there appears to be... this orphanage in Vienna... which you have mixed feelings about. Uhm... because you massacred about a hundred of its inhabitants."

"I was outnumbered." Spike says. "Skip that one."

"Of course. I need something that involves the both of you." Saavedra focusses. "Tell me when I'm close."

Angel's eyes flit back and forth between Spike and the doctor, looking for any signs of brain sabotage, while he keeps the stake gun fixed on Saavedra.

Spike chuckles at something. "Not that one, doc."

"How about..." Saavedra frowns, "... this one?" A tendril of light is pulled out of Spike's head.

Angel looks worried. "Spike? Are you feeling anything?"

"Sort of tickles." he says, watching as Saavedra draws the memory out of him and begins to form a frame out of it.

The picture is pretty dark. Like midnight in the wild, but different.

Textures start to become apparent.

Until Angelus' face suddenly takes up the entire screen. He looks angry. "Perhaps it's my advancing years that make me so forgetful, William. Remind me: Why don't we kill you?" Angelus says through gritted teeth, apparently choking the first person.

"Yorkshire. I knew it." Angel says. "He had us hiding in a mineshaft after getting half of London's worth of torches and pitchforks coming after us."

Saavedra hushes him. "Your perspective is up next. Let Spike's view unfurl now."

"How is it going to be any different?" Angel mutters.

In the frame, Angelus appears to have let go of Spike's throat, and familiar dialogue continues. But an undercurrent of words echoes through and over it.

"Those are Spike's impressions." Saavedra explains.

"You've got me and my women hiding in the luxury of a mineshaft, all because William the Bloody likes attention. This is not a reputation we need." Angelus hisses.

Before he finishes, Spike thinks over it: "Not doing it for just anyone's attention, you ungrateful git."

Then he says out loud: "I'm sorry, did I sully our good reputation? We're vampires!"

Angelus starts to respond: "All the more reason to use a certain amount of – "

"Bollocks." Spike thinks over it. "He's seeing I'm doing him a favour, right? Why would he have shown me the light if he himself is blind to it?"

"What does he... What do you mean a favour?" Angel interrupts, looking confused at the memory frame.

"Watch." Saavedra says.

The Spike in Yorkshire is retaliating: "When's the last time you unleashed it? All out fighting a mob, back to the wall, nothing but fists and fangs? Don't you ever get tired of fights you know you're gonna win?"

His speech ends there, but his thoughts run on: "Just get your flabby arse out of the shadows and into the real action. Why won't you let me fucking do for you what you did for me?"

Angel frowns and squints at the image of Angelus.

Spike notices it and shrugs. "You weren't exactly in peak fitness at the time, mate."

"Poofter." the Spike in mineshaft says, thinking at the same time: "I know you're in there."

The next second Angelus is taking up the entire screen again, a wooden stake pressed against Spike's chest.

Spike thinks: "Now you're getting it!" and says it out loud at the same time, laughing.

Angel drops the stake and turns away. "You can't keep this up forever. If I can't teach you, maybe someday an angry crowd will. That, or the Slayer."

Spike's thoughts: "You've already taught me what I need to know. Why do you always want to teach? And what – "

"What's a Slayer?" he asks.

"I think the relevant part ends here." Spike says. "Can we pause it?"

"Close enough." Saavedra says, as his hand hovers over the frame and the images blur over and become indistinguishable. "Angel, will you allow me to take the same memory from you?"

Angel looks hesitant. "We could just discuss this, now that I know what Spike was thinking back then."

"No pedalling back now, Angel. The stage is yours." Spike insists, reaching a hand out for the stake gun.

Angel chews his bottom lip for a second. "Alright." He hands Spike the stake gun and steps forward, allowing Doctor Saavedra to place his fingers on his considerable brow.

The memory is carefully drawn out and suspended in the air, next to Spike's.

The image swirls until it settles on the familiar setting inside the mineshaft. And on Spike's face, and Angelus' hand clutched around his throat.

A thought echoes out: "What... is it going to take?" Then Angelus hisses at Spike: "Perhaps it's my advancing years that make me so forgetful, William. Remind me: Why don't we kill you?"

Spike manages to choke out a syllable: "... ike ..."

"Who the fuck is Ike?" Angelus wonders in his head. "What's that?" he asks, releasing Spike's throat from his grasp.

"It's 'Spike' now." rasps Spike. "You'd do well to remember it, mate."

Angelus' thoughts gain an anxious tint. "Who does he think he is? Who the fuck does he think he is? And 'mate'?"

"I'm not your 'mate'." he says out loud, forcing harshness out of himself. "And when did you start talking like that?"

"Guess I kept my ears open for other things than screams while we went pub-crawling back then." Spike comments from present-day reality, giving a wink to the brunette.

"This is not a reputation we need." Angelus growls, thinking "You're not going anywhere. Stop fucking making this happen. Please."

"I'm sorry, did I sully our good name? We are vampires!" Spike spits back.

"You're supposed to be more." Angelus thinks. "You were always more. I can help you."

Out loud: "All the more reason to use a certain amount of finesse..."

Angel looks as if a revelation just drove over him like a truck. Saavedra strokes his chin thoughtfully from behind the floating frames of light. And Spike is frowning to a degree worthy of his sire, his face occasionally relaxing, then tensing again.

"Bollocks! That stuff's for the frilly cuffs and collars crowd." Spike says. "I'll take a good brawl any day."

"Please don't do this." Angelus thinks, not sure whether he's thinking it to himself or to Spike.

"And every time you do, we become the hunted." he says steadily.

Spike isn't impressed: "Yeah, know what I prefer to being hunted? Getting caught."

"Why? Why can't this be enough?" Angelus' mind echoes. "I'm so sick of everybody changing. Don't do this. Don't fucking change."

"That's brilliant strategy. Really. Pure cunning." he cuts at Spike, amazed that he almost felt a tremble in his voice.

"Sod off! When's the last time you unleashed it?" Spike says with the passion that Angelus loved so much, now becoming something he fears.

"Please." thinks Angelus.

Spike rages on: "All out fighting a mob, nothing but fists and fangs? Don't you ever get tired of fights you know you're gonna win?"

The echo of Angelus' thoughts: "Doesn't know what he's doing. Doesn't know what he's saying. All fucking lost. All for nothing."

"No. A real kill, a good kill... it takes an artistry. Without that, we're just animals." he mutters, thinking a loop of "You're mine. You're not taking this. Don't make me say this."

"Poofter." Spike says coldly, knifing straight through Angelus' internal fretting. The fight is something that Angelus trusts more than the word right now. And this temptation, this provocation, has come as balm to a screaming sore. So he pushes Spike. Shoves him, his mind going blissfully blank.

Spike is barely off-balanced and pushes him back, hard.

Spotting a pickaxe on the ground, Angelus picks it up, snaps it in two with absentminded fury, and presses the sharpest end right up against Spike's chest, who laughs: "Now you're getting it!"

An immovable object meets an unstoppable projectile inside Angelus' mind. It eventually all pops apart like anticlimactic fireworks. He lowers the stake and turns away.

"You can't keep this up forever. If I can't teach you, maybe someday an angry crowd will." he grumbles. "That, or the Slayer." he thinks. "Wait. Did I say that out loud?"

Angel's hand claws through the frame, scattering it. He steps back and forcefully sits himself back down on his uncomfortable seat, which creaks for a second before one of its legs gives way, sending Angel collapsing backward onto the floor.

Angel lets himself lie there for a moment, facing down and away from the room, wanting the fourth floor to open up and swallow him.

Then a hand is there, and he knows it's William's, because it firmly takes his and pulls him up to stand again.

Once on his feet, he kicks at the hateful, broken chair. "Great." he snorts.

"Are you alright?" Saavedra asks, looking genuinely apologetic.

"Physically, I'm excellent." Angel says, not feeling ready to look at Spike yet.

"I'm sorry about the chair. Do we continue this in a later session?" the doctor suggests.

"No." says Angel. "I'm fine. What do we do now?"

"Well, Spike," Saavedra turns to address him, "Do you have any questions for Angel?"

Spike sighs and looks at Angel, then at Saavedra. "Not really. Just one for you. Who are you exactly?"

The doctor frowns and looks mildly perplexed.

"We've spilled our heads and hearts out for you here, Hal." Spike steps up close, still wielding the stake gun. "But I smelled your fingers while you were sticking them in my brain. And I caught a whiff of something funny." He sticks the barrel of the gun under the doctor's chin. "So what's your story?"

Angel still feels pretty messed up, but he wills himself into ready-for-action mode.

If Doctor Saavedra is getting nervous, he is doing a commendable job at hiding it. "I doubt you've smelled anything but well-meaning psychiatrist on me. Please, lower the gun."

"You may be a headshrinker, but you're definitely not human." Spike growls. "And whatever magical camouflage you have on you is not memory-resistant. Drop the act or you'll be smoking through your windpipe."

Saavedra slowly and carefully brings his fingers to his own face and sniffs them briefly. "Well, I'll be damned." He looks up at Spike with apparent amazement. "Thank you for pointing that out. And I'm sorry if this comes as a disappointment, but I am indeed a demon like yourselves. But I assure you I don't intend to report any of this to my superiors."

Angel, now standing by Spike's side: "As far as I can see, the only guarantee for that would come from Spike pulling that trigger." Angel looks uncertain, not detecting a lie in the doctor's words, eyes or facial twitches. "But maybe there's another way to get to know the real you..."

He walks over to the doctor's desk and picks up the phone.

Three minutes later, Lorne walks in through the smashed door frame, looking around at the splintered furniture with theatrical awe. "Well, if this is a shrink's office, then where's Mel Gibson?" He carefully steps forward, dressed in garish orange and purple. "You rang, Angelcakes?"

"Hi, Lorne." says Angel. "The doctor has a song to sing for you."

Spike nudges Saavedra with the stake gun.

Saavedra sighs and opens his mouth. "Mu'gzytst rvapybm wdngha."

Lorne frowns. "I can't use any of that experimental post-industrial chanting stuff, doc. Don't you have any KC & The Sunshine Band for me?"

The doctor looks confused suddenly, his eyes widening as if he is only noticing the stake gun for the first time. "What? How... What's going on? "

Spike squints, recognises something in the doctor's eyes, then senses a change in the room and starts to put six and six together. "Body swap!" he shouts, turning around just in time to see the back of the brunette's leg as she disappears out the doorway. "Saavedra jumped into the girl! Stop her!"

Angel rushes out into the waiting room – the other patients still sitting with their magazines – and after the brunette, who has kicked off her stilettos as she rounds the corner and runs out into the main corridor. Angel knows that she is no match for his vampire speed and agility.

Back in the office, Spike is trying to calm down the occupant of doctor Saavedra's body. "You'll have your own lovely body back in no time, love. Just ride it out. Keep breathing."

"I can't... I can't breathe." the doctor rasps. "Please..."

Spike recognises a panic attack and lowers the stake gun completely. Bad move. The doctor, quick as a viper, kicks him in the balls and jinks past him, racing for his desk. Spike moans and clutches his package, witnessing helplessly how Saavedra picks up the phone and presses a combination of buttons. Saavedra winks at Spike as his bodily form starts to become elastic and then abruptly gets sucked into the talking end of the telephone, which then clatters down onto the desk's wooden surface.

Lorne gets to the desk first, picking up the receiver and staring into it pointlessly. "Oh cripes, I'm afraid we lost him, Spike."

Spike, staggering awkwardly to the desk, wheezes "Hang up. Try 'redial'."

Lorne looks at Spike for half a second as if he just invented disco. Then he slams the receiver down on the base and hits the 'redial' button. His red eyes grow big. "Well... I think I might as well have used the 'Elvis has left the building' cliché this once." he says, staring down at the LED screen on the phone base. "Because I'm pretty sure we just let the king slip through our fingers."

"What the crackers are you – " Spike starts, before he sees for himself the words SENIOR PARTNERS flashing on the tiny screen.

"At least, one of the kings." Lorne shrugs.

Angel walks back into the room, clutching the brunette's arm. "I've got her. But I don't think the doctor is in anymore."

"Yeah," says Spike. "Doc had a house call to make."

"He doubled back?" Angel looks pained. "How did we fall for that?"

Lorne chips in: "More importantly, it looks like you and Spike have been shooting the breeze with one of the big guns. Like, the biggest."

"He was a Senior Partner." Spike elaborates. "Unless he was some lackey that is somehow allowed anywhere near them. Or that phone number was mislabelled."

Angel looks confused. "Doctor Saavedra is a Senior Partner? Where did he go?"

Spike points at the phone. "He sucked himself up into the phone. It looked rather cool."

"Mind letting go of my arm?" the brunette says irritatedly. Angel lets her arm go, mouthing an absentminded apology under his breath.

"Is there a way to track him?" Angel asks nobody in particular.

"Down there? I'm not going anywhere incorporeally for another... year at least." Spike says.

"You guys might want to stick some yellow tape up and get the tech savvy crew in here. Just sayin'." Lorne suggests.

"Yeah, get Fred and Wesley on it." says Angel. "Nobody else touches that phone until they get here. Spike, come with me."

Spike waits a few seconds, annoyed at being ordered about, then follows Angel out of the doctor's office, leaving the stake gun with Lorne.

"What did you see exactly?" Angel asks Spike, the two of them walking down the corridors of Wolfram & Hart.

"I never said I saw anything. He just smelled funny."

"Yeah, but he also looked into our heads, Spike. Did you catch anything of what was going on inside his?"

"Can't say I did. Then again, I've never had a Senior Partner rooting around my brain before. Wouldn't have known where to look. What were you in there for anyway? Who set you up?"

The pair turn a corner and come to a standstill in front of the elevators. Angel hits the 'up' button and they wait.

"I did. I made an appointment. Well, not for getting reaped obviously."

"So what then?"

Angel doesn't respond, just waits until the elevator dings in announcement of its arrival, then gets in. Spike follows and Angel presses a button, closing the doors behind them.

"Fine, I get it." Spike says. "It's none of my business. But why the bloody hell would you trust a Wolfram & Hart company shrink? Did you give the accountants your credit card number as well?"

Angel sighs. "It wasn't for anything serious. Besides, I was curious about the guy."

Spike shakes his head. "Don't tell me this is about some dream you've been having."

Angel frowns, but keeps staring straight ahead. "What would you know about that?"

"Nothing. Maybe everything. Depends." Spike shrugs.

"God!" Angel punches the red STOP button and the elevator shudders to a halt. "Would you of all people please do me the favour of being the first person today to talk straight to me?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" Spike squares up to him. "For starters, I think that you've become so used to getting punished, by Hell, by your folks, by yourself, that you can't accept anything else from anyone anymore! Nothing that means anything anyway. But I, for one, am not here to indulge your masochistic fetishes. When I'm telling you the truth, it's because it's the truth, not because it hurts."

Angel blinks. "That's... probably... yeah."

Spike continues: "So why don't you tell me some truth now? Tell me what you were thinking back in that mine."

"Didn't you hear what I was thinking ten minutes ago?" Angel replies. "Besides, that wasn't me talking. Thinking. Whatever."

"Fine, then tell me what Angelus was thinking. Not gonna hold that against you. Demonic scout's honour." Spike raises two fingers.

"I thought that I – Angelus had said it loud and clear. You were going to get us caught and killed!" Angel gesticulates with exasperation. "Your soul clearly didn't come with a brain, or you would have at least understood that part by now."

"Tell me you didn't have the best time of your evil life when you had it my way." says Spike. "I saved you from mediocrity. With you kicking and screaming."

"I was never mediocre!" Angel spits. "I was Angelus, the scourge of Europe! The only thing you saved me from was the comfort and security of a long life!"

"Go on then, whisper sweet nothings to yourself about how you could have had your eternity of kill-hide-repeat, stuck in the shadows until even your demon gets bored of the routine and just atrophies out of sheer despair. No matter how much 'artistry' you put in it, it would have left you an empty fucking bourgeois zombie."

Angel's tone grows weaker. "Bored? Zombie? I was happy!"

"Then what did you need me for?"

Hesitation. "Because... It just seemed.. was..."

"And why did you then try to get rid of me?"

"Oh, I wanted to protect you!" shouts Angel.

A century earlier, on a night in an exterminated bar in Saint Petersburg, Angelus has Spike pinned down on the floor among broken pieces of furniture.

"One of these days," grins Spike, "you won't have a chair to smash over me."

"I will always have something to smash over you." Angelus grins back down at him.

"Have at it, then." Spike sticks up his chin.

Angelus indulges the invitation and a long sharp fingernail plants itself on Spike's sternum and slowly descends towards his groin, cutting through the fabric of his shirt, just deep enough to leave a vertical line of blood along its way. If Spike had a need to breathe, he would have stopped for this moment. A shiver does run down his arms as he feels Angelus pause to flip a semi-severed button off of his belly, then continue bisecting his shirt until it easily falls away from his shoulders.

His companion's chest finally naked and bleeding, Angelus makes an effort to not reflexively show his demon face. He wants to taste this with human teeth, see this through human sight. Or as close to those as possible anyway.

Spike allows himself to stare up at the ceiling as Angelus' face disappears from view. Seconds later, lips touch the bottom of the wet, red line that runs the length of his upper body. It's not a kiss. It's just lips catching blood. Little flicks of the tongue, not letting any get away.

Instead of working his way up, Angelus' mouth quickly crosses the few inches down to the hem of his trousers.

"It's up here, you know." Spike chuckles.

"I am a man of many thirsts." Angelus says, undoing the trouser buttons one by one with exaggerated delicacy.

Spike's cock is already half hard, and rapidly filling out to the final stages by the time Angelus pops the last button and sets it free. Angelus lets out an appreciative hum of contentment as he sees the full length come to rest on Spike's abdomen.

He extends his tongue again, now lapping once at the base of it, then going up the shaft, stopping just before the sensitive head.

"It's up there, you know." Spike says, then gasps inaudibly as the coolness of Angelus' mouth swiftly envelops the top half of his cock. Then, slowly, the rest of it. So easy to take it deep when you don't need air. Angelus' tongue caresses the bottom of the shaft and, as he lets Spike's cock slip back out of his throat, circles the head.

"Nevermind." Spike sighs.

Angelus repeats this several times, taking the relatively slender erection down in his mouth and teasing it with the fullness of his tongue. His hands, in the meantime, grip the insides of Spike's thighs.

"Maybe I was wrong." Angel says, leaning against the metal wall of the elevator. "I was... probably... wrong and you would have been fine and I was just afraid you'd leave. And then get yourself in trouble. Which you wouldn't." He raises his eyes to the well-lit ceiling.

"Oh, I would've." responds Spike. "I live for trouble. There's no living without it."

"Evidently not." Angel sighs. "I just finally had something good going. A good gang. It's bad enough when others try to destroy that. But then it blew up itself instead."

"Maybe it wouldn't've blown up." Spike says. "The Beatles managed for the longest of times with both Lennon and McCartney at the reins. Different ideas, same trust."

"Yeah." Angel curtly whispers. "I guess we'll never know now."

"Well, I think I've had a pretty successful solo career." shrugs Spike, getting a cigarette out. "It was still pretty good after I got a soul."

"Do you ever miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"The old way. The way we lived. I mean, not necessarily the things we did, but..." Angel gestures a hand at Spike.

"You mean the freedom? Lack of guilt? Lack of restraint? Not caring? 'Course I do. Still think we've got it pretty good though."

Angel frowns a little. "Were you happy? I mean, you were evil, but..."

"I think I was a bit too happy for you, in fact." says Spike.

"No." says Angel. "Not at all. You just knew how to use what was given to you. And I didn't know how."

Spike looks at him for a couple of seconds with the closest to a smile that a blank face can get. Then he flicks open his lighter and puts it to his cigarette.

Just when he is about to inhale, Angel asks "Can I have one?"

Spike's eyes look at him in not unpleasant surprise. Then he takes the freshly lit cigarette out from between his lips and passes it to Angel.

"As long as you're not thinking of us going Blues Brothers. Matching dusters and what not..." Spike smirks as he lights another one for himself.

Angel smiles on the one corner of his mouth and pulls the smoke into his lungs. "Don't worry. As far as I'm concerned, your cigarette habit will remain uniquely your own."

"So," says Spike, artfully blowing a loop of smoke out of his nostrils, "You did want me to stay?"

"I thought that you needed to stay in line." Angel says, his thoughts wandering to his deal with Connor. "I thought that I'd lose you if I couldn't control you."

Spike nods. "I think I know why that was. You feared your old man more than you knew me."

"No. I just didn't recognise that I was being my father. Because I did try to be one." Angel takes his cigarette out for a moment and looks pensively away. "A kind of father. A leader that you could rely on."

"Yeah, I can see what you did there." says Spike. "Thing is, I was ready to follow. Just not ready for it becoming a knitting circle for the homicidal."

Angel still feels jittery, but the nicotine does seem to take the edge off. "And I wasn't ready to give you up for the sake of the gang. It was the gypsies that pulled us apart, not you or me."

"True enough, I suppose." Spike mumbles as he tokes. "So, did you at least get what you came to Doctor Evil's office for?"

Angel raises his eyebrows. "I'm not... sure. He said some things that made sense. Had some good ideas." He then looks down to the elevator floor. "But you know, he was trying to keep us apart. Told me that we're a danger to each other. As if he was afraid of the idea of us together." He looks up at Spike's eyes.

"Is that so?" Spike perks up. "That's only the.. ooh, second time this year that they've tried to get us to wipe each other out. Sounds like you and me are on to a winner, mate."

Angel smiles. For once in a long time, a selfish lie seems like the only true loving thing to do. He knows that something bad is coming, and he knows that he doesn't want Spike to get drawn into the thick of this apocalypse like a fly to a bug zapper. And maybe the Senior Partners are just planting another double bluff.

But he knows that this is right. He blows smoke up at the bright lights above.

"Ufff, easy!" Spike grunts, the head of Angelus' cock pressing up against the resisting opening between his parted thighs, as he lies back on the wooden table.

"Yes, you are." Angelus' attempted evil snigger turning into a somewhat uncontrolled laugh.

"Really now?" Spike cocks his head sideways. "You might want to respect your prospective host a bit more than that." He clenches his nether hole as best as he can, shutting out Angelus' eager prick.

"There is no gate that I cannot breach." leers Angelus, bringing his face close to Spike's, then snapping his teeth at him with an impish grin, still pressing up against him down low.

Spike doesn't blink or recoil. "If I were to go along with that ridiculous metaphor, I'd have to pour burning oil down on your head."

"Go ahead. See who screams first." says Angelus, only just containing a sputter of laughter.

"Fine." groans Spike, betrayed by his own want. "I call truce." He sees Angelus' dark eyes glaze over as he purposefully lets the thick head push him open.

He knows Angelus likes to take it slow at this part. Just like he knows that just when it feels like the stretch is becoming too much, the head slips in, wedging itself well inside him. Angelus gives him a glance in the eyes, looking for confirmation. He doesn't always do that. Spike doesn't always need him to. But yeah, today he does.

Today has been a different day. Maybe it's the solar eclipse. Maybe something in the vodka in the blood. Or just in the blood.

Angelus pushes in with almost human gentleness. Is he holding back? Spike's insides envelop him so easily. Angelus holds still for one second, then decides such goodness doesn't deserve questioning.

"Ohh.." Spike moans. "Come on then."

Angelus sticks it deeper. Pulls back to the point only the head of his cock is still in. Then in again.

"Uh, hi. Is there some kind of problem?" a distinctive female voice buzzes through the elevator intercom.

"We're fine, Harmony. Private meeting here." says Angel rather loudly in the direction of the speaker holes in the wall panel.

"In the elevator?" Harmony-through-the-intercom asks incredulously.

"Where else is private?" Angel shrugs, unbeknownst to Harmony who only has audio access.

"Well, the broom closet isn't very glitz, but – "

"Thank you, Harmony!" Angel shouts into the intercom, then whispers to Spike: "How do you turn this off?"

Before Angel realises his mistake, Spike has already lifted a heavily booted leg and smashes it into the wall panel, sending sparks fizzing about. The lights in the elevator shimmer and go out.

"What was that? Boss?" chirps Harmony's voice through the pitch dark elevator.

Angelus groans.

Spike knows how to work him, tightening around the length of his cock at just the right intervals.

See who screams first, eh? Angelus ups the pace, goes deeper again. Spike's eyes are closed and his mouth just a little bit open. Seems happy enough.

Angelus runs his hand up Spike's chest, leaving streaks of red with his fingers as they cross the vertical cut, then up along the arm, past the wrist, finally reaching Spike's open hand. They join.

More and more frequently does Angelus' thick cock brush over his most sensitive spot. Spike moans and reaches for Angelus' hip with his free hand, wanting to pull him closer.

Angel repeatedly presses the red button.

"I think we're crossing the line between cosy and claustrophobic a bit here." Spike says, his eyes still adjusting to the darkness.

"Nothing works. We're stuck." sighs Angel.

"With each other. Again." adds Spike.

"And moi!" Harmony buzzes through the intercom.

Spike doesn't even begin to roll his eyes.

"Send in a repair crew, Harmony. Double quick." Angel barks in the general direction of her voice.

"Okidoki!" she buzzes. "Uhm... what elevator are you in?"

"I don't know." Angel says with staccato irritation. "Just check them all."

"What zzzthat?" the intercom buzzes back, sounding increasingly fragmented.

"Harmony...? Check all the elevators. Did you get that? Harmony?"

The intercom just crackles and clicks now.

"Can't we get out through the ceiling?" Spike asks, flicking his lighter on and waving the flame upward.

"Those have already been secured since the last break-in." sighs Angel. "I guess we'll just have to wait it out."

"What? That's it? We leave our lives in the hands of a secretary who still doesn't know that she has to press the 'hold' button before hanging up the receiver?"

"I swear, once we're out of here, I'll make this a bullet point for the next staff meeting." Angel says.

"Make it hollow-point." Spike snorts, looking worried at the diminishing flame of his lighter. He flicks it off, then on again. The light remains weak. "Oh come on." he mutters under his breath. As he turns, a shadow passes by across the walls and he backs away, suddenly nervous. "You alright?" he hears Angel ask.

"Yeah. Just cramped in here." The elevator has been feeling bigger for a while now. And it is cramped. But the weakening flame of the lighter doesn't even reach the walls anymore. Maybe that's why that shadow looked further away than it should have been.

Spike waves the lighter across the same area, attempting to recreate the moment. But it's different now. And swallowing is more difficult too.

The pale flame shudders lightly.

"Angel." Spike says in a half-whisper. "Can you see anything?"

"The walls, just about." says Angel. "Maybe you should save your lighter fluid. Nothing much to look at in here."

Spike doesn't answer. He doesn't close his lighter.

Angelus' grip on Spike's ankle is slipping. So he lowers it to grasp him under the knee, which actually provides him with an even better angle. His steady, long thrusts continue, plummetting the head of his cock to delightful new depths.

Spike's moaned response is music to his ears. Angelus licks his lips and groans, knowing that his full length is inside now. And Spike's eyes are now open and seeking his own.

"Goddamn, close now..." Angelus pants, feeling a familiar tingling behind his balls.

Spike's eyes burn up at those of Angelus, but Angelus' eyes are more and more glazed over, more in tune with his own half-open mouth than with the searching eyes of the one below him. Spike whispers in desperate jolts: "Tell... me..."

Angelus is horses on unstoppable rampage. He anxiously slams down into Spike, a fury of grunts starting in his stomach. He claws at the thighs spread out before him on the squeaking table, wanting more purchase. With every thrust, the minor give of the creaking table legs keeps that last bottom inch just out of his reach, and it's pissing him off. Spike is saying something because his lips are moving, but he can feel his balls tightening and his dick is swelling with great joyous rapture. Not even murder could stop him now.

Spike's lighter goes out. And something breathes softly into Spike's ear.

"What the bloody hell?" Spike jerks away, sending his lighter clattering to the floor.

"Spike?" Angel gropes for him in the dark of the elevator. "What – "

"Something's here!" Spike feels Angel's hand grasp his. "Get the lighter!"

The table creaks madly with Angelus' thrusts.

"Say... it..." Spike forces out his throat. His left hand clutching the table, his right hand strained and hovering over his erection, not daring to grasp it because it's pulsating so hard that he feels he would burst if he did, and definitely certain that it would if Angelus did. Again hitting his spot just right, just right. Without touching, another stream of fluid is drained from out of his cock and pools neatly on his stomach.

Angelus can't tell whether his eyes are open or shut. All his perception is focussed down and away. Spike is shouting something. Yeah, this is it. The grunts in his stomach gutturally crawl up and out of his throat, in perfect brutal timing with his glowing prick embedded deeply in that magnificent behind.

Spike's eyes are losing Angelus altogether. And all of Spike is losing grip. One last time he begs.

"ARRHHH!" Angelus doesn't break stride and gallops hungrily towards release. His orgasm explodes as if somebody dropped a match in the Royal British arms depot.

Simultaneously, Spike's mouth opens in silence and he finally grabs hold of his cock, which is already enough to set it off, starting with a long spurt of cum that flies right over his shoulder and onto the table.

Angelus' legs almost buckle, but he can't slow down yet. A steady beep has found its way in his ears.

"Can't you hear it?" Spike anxiously tries to look at every corner of the elevator at once, circling around the middle, his shoulder bumping into Angel as he tries to flick the lighter on again, but it doesn't even spark.

"There's nothing here, Spike. Try to keep calm. Uhm... breathe?" Angel looks worried.

"You didn't hear him come last time!" Spike shouts into the darkness where Angel's face must be. "He didn't make you look!"

"Listen!" Angel grabs for Spike's arm, but he jerks away. "Pervane is locked away and we threw away the key. We kicked his ass together, remember?"

"Just get me out of here already!" Spike paces in tiny circles.

"Harmony!" Angel tries one more time. The intercom doesn't even dignify it with a crackle. Angel swallows his frustration and tells Spike: "She's away from her desk, taking it up with the maintenance crew. Just ride it out, Spike. You can do this."

Spike is sitting naked on the table in the St Petersburg bar, still feeling pleasantly achey and unpleasantly confused.

Angelus is still avoiding his eyes, as he sits naked in one of the few remaining chairs. "Let's go find a farmhouse. I feel like eating something bucolic now." he says, stretching his legs out.

"Did you hear me back then?" Spike asks.

Angelus grins a little uncomfortably, not sure why. "I sure did."

"Did you hear what I said?" Spike asks, a bit more severely.

"Not sure if any of that counted as 'saying'." Angelus gets up and picks up his trousers, the grin still unsteadily fixed on his face.

"You're still a coward." bites Spike, hopping off the table and starting to gather what's left of his own clothes.

Angelus' grin turns downward. "What viper has bitten you all of a sudden? I didn't hear you complain five minutes ago."

"Yeah, you did everything right." Spike snarls. "Except make it matter!"

Angelus laughs, a high sputtering laugh. "Should I have simultaneously buggered _and_ fellated you in order to make it matter?"

Spike just stares at Angelus, boiling anger balled up between his eyes and his lips. Then something passes, softening his features, and he just looks away. "Doesn't matter. Stupid to expect anything from a fucking vampire."

Angelus scoffs and frowns. "Looked into any mirrors lately, William?"

Spike tucks the two halves of his shirt into his trousers, shoots Angelus one more look, then heads for the exit door and walks out the demolished bar.

Angelus walks after him, but when he gets to the exit, the street is abandoned.

"What did you want me to say?" he calls out into the night as it starts to snow.

"Spike!" Angel tries to grab his hand again, but Spike just keeps pacing around the elevator and cursing at shadows.

Even Angel is getting disoriented as he catches an elbow to his cheekbone as Spike now has his hands clasped over his ears, shutting out ugly voices that only he is hearing.

Spike turns and paces, nearly stumbling, and lets out a panicked sob.

"Goddamn it." Angel grits his teeth. "William." He finally gets a hold of Spike's arms, walks him back into the wall with a resounding slam. "William!"

"I love you." Angel hears himself say.

The lights abruptly flicker on, above, then around them, as the elevator suddenly whirrs to life.

Spike finds himself staring into Angel's eyes. Angel feels relief washing over him as he sees the pair of pale blue eyes blink with awakening.

"Liam? What..." Spike starts, then frowns.

He turns to look over his shoulder to find the big black 'RESET' switch pressing painfully into his back.

"Looks like you fixed it." Spike says to Angel with a sort of wonder in his voice.

Angel finds his fingers still digging into Spike's upper arms. Doesn't want to let go yet. "You with me?"

"I'm here." Spike exhales with a shudder. "I'm all here."

"Yeah, that's right. You're safe." Angel slowly dares to loosen his grip. "And you're staying here... I mean, not in the elevator."

"I'm alright now, thanks. No more claustrophobia. Promise." assures Spike, feeling more lucid by the second. "Just some recent bad memories stirred up by that Suvarta fiddling with my brain."

"Saavedra." says Angel, still inspecting him for any signs of discomfort.

"Whatever." Spike looks him in the eye. "Liam."

Angel freezes. Looks back at Spike. "Yeah?" he whispers, afraid that anything more than a sigh might be too much.

"Thank you." says Spike.

Angel smiles, almost shy. "I would have got you out of there. No matter what. It's nothing." He glances at the semi-smashed wall panel. "Wanna get a drink?"

"As long as you're paying and I'm talking." Spike says with a crooked smile, then frowns at the damaged controls. "And as long as we're going anywhere."

"I don't think you put your foot into any critical parts. Let's give it a shot." says Angel, reaching for the 4th floor button.

Over a hundred years ago, Angelus walks out into the street, little snowflakes descending slowly around him.

"Spike?" he calls out.

He sniffs the air, looking for a trace of scent. Except his senses are so full of Spike already that it's like alarm bells coming from all directions.

One particular scent, definitely not Spike's, does strike him as vaguely familiar. Familiar and somehow attached to good memories. And it's close.

He frowns. Something flits down across his face, and he only has his vampire reflexes to thank that he can stick a hand up between the wire and his throat, just before it gets tightened by furiously strong hands behind his neck.

"So you like piano wire, huh?" a voice with a Russian accent croaks into his ear.

Angelus has to get out of this deadlock within seconds, or the wire will simply slice his hand in half before it gets to the softer tissue of his throat.

He wills his adrenaline down a notch, just for half a second. Enough to think up a quick and wise strategy.

He kicks his right heel back, cracking it square against the shin of his attacker, who grunts in pain and loosens his grip a little. Angelus then plants a sharp elbow into the stranger's ribcage, which is enough to send him toppling backward, letting the wire slip from his fingers.

Angelus quickly turns to identify his attacker, who is now lying on the ground, propping himself up on his elbows. It is a skinny, pale man with a single red horn protruding from his forehead, dressed in sober monk's robes.

"Who the hell are you?" Angelus asks, nursing his bleeding hand.

"Only the caretaker of the most beautiful horde of Fyonih demons to ever haunt St Petersburg." the man wheezes hatefully. "You may recall insulting their mothers, then denying them their rightful vengeance, and then almost wiping them out completely."

"I wasn't even sure they had mothers." grins Angelus, then winces at his hand. "Wait. 'Almost'?"

With a resounding "Nnnnrrrraaarrrggghhhh", Angelus gets brutally tackled from behind and smashed into the snowy street by enormous, muscular arms. He's pretty sure they belong to a Fyonih demon.

The owner of the arms then flips him over so that Angelus can both see his suspicion about this new assailant's identity confirmed and get punched in the face really hard. Like, stronger-than-vampire hard.

"Take his body apart like a matryoshka!" the caretaker screeches.

Still dazed from the unbelievably hard punch, Angelus is helpless as the hulking Fyonih grabs him by the throat and raises its fist up for another swing. From the corner of his eye, he can see the wire lying on the ground, just out of reach. He also sees, less enticingly, four more Fyonih demons stomping towards him.

He looks up again, expecting the fist to smash into his face right now. But before that can happen, a pale blur smashes sideways into the Fyonih, toppling it over.

"Hands off my man." Spike pants, rubbing the shoulder with which he barged into the demon's massive bulk.

Angelus crawls to his feet as fast as he can. "Spike..."

"Still making friends, I see." says Spike, keeping his eyes on the five huge demons that have now surrounded them. They seem hesitant, though.

Spike and Angelus turn their backs to one another, raising their fists in defence, trying to ignore their bruised shoulder and deeply cut hand.

"I will use your brains to spice up my boys' borscht tonight!" the caretaker yells, then orders the Fyonih: "Splatter them!"

With a rare degree of inhibition and carefulness, the demons start closing the circle around the two vampires.

"Each of these motherless brothel trolls is too much to handle for the both of us, Spike. I'm open to suggestions." says Angelus. "Where's that wire?"

"I thought you had it." Spike replies.

"Fuck." Angelus grimaces. "I left it in the bar."

The Fyonih are close enough for their hot, foul garbage breath to be felt on the skin. The biggest one lets out a snarl of increased confidence, sensing that their prey isn't in a hunting mood this time.

Angelus is looking for a way to slip out of the circle, but he knows the Fyonih are expert pack hunters and when they manage to close down their prey, the only way out is to fight back.

He feels Spike grasp his hand. Angelus' eyes almost close for a second with the relief that he instinctively feels. He won't be alone having his head smashed to a pulp.

But Spike then slowly, demonstratively raises their balled hands upward.

The largest and closest of the Fyonih widens its eyes, then takes a step back. The other four don't look very reassured by this. The circle wavers.

Angelus now understands Spike's bluff and puts on his evilest battle grin, flashing mad eyes at their opponents, who are now blinking nervously. All of them step back now, for the first time in their lives feeling a tremor of fear at the rumour of the invisible cord of carnage that these two vampires hold between their hands.

"Right! Who wants to have a look into their own bowels first?" Spike barks, taking a step away from Angelus, their arms now stretched out between them.

This does it. The five Fyonih demons turn and hurriedly scamper back into the dark alley they came from.

Once the last of them is out of sight, Spike and Angelus drop the act and let go of the other's hand. Their attention turns to the caretaker, who is backing away slowly, terror and disbelief in his eyes.

"Keep your puppies on a leash next time." Angelus growls, then takes a step forward and hisses at him. The caretaker shrieks, lifts his monk's robe above his ankles and sprints away into the darkness.

"And take care!" Spike shouts after him.

Angelus' battle grin then fades as he turns to face Spike. "Where did you go? I went looking for you."

"Not far." Spike says, holding his painful shoulder. "I heard you."

"I'm sorry." says Angelus, suddenly feeling like something melts and crashes down inside his heart. "I'm sorry." He puts a hand over his eyes.

Spike reaches his hand out to him again. "I know. Come. Let's go home."

Angelus, dazed and grateful, takes Spike's hand with his bleeding own.

Home, back then and there, was the top floor of a particularly lovely and ornately decorated hotel at the Fontanka river.

The two vampires take their time ascending the stairs up to their room. A sharp contrast with the boisterous laughter, stumbling and spilling of liquor that occurred the previous time they were here.

"So why did you go out of your way to piss off those Fyonih anyway? Hardly finesse, I'd call it." says Spike, as they take the steps one by one.

Angelus blinks, then turns his face to look at him. "It's what you wanted, isn't it? Ever since Yorkshire, you kept saying I had a stake up my arse."

Spike grins a little. "You deserve one now."

Angelus looks pained and faces forward again. "Yeah. Maybe so."

They round the corner and head up the last flight of stairs.

Spike frowns a little at Angelus. "Hey, don't get broody. You were fucking brilliant."

Angelus looks back at Spike, surprised. "Brilliant? When?"

Spike raises an eyebrow. "Like I said earlier, you did everything right. No lies there."

Angelus smiles a little. Perhaps this strange night is to be salvaged after all.

They have arrived. Spike fishes out the keys from behind the ear of a bronze statue of the czar and unlocks the door to their room.

For the rest of the night, they lounge about the extravagant suite, mostly on the floor around the fireplace, exchanging poetry, stories, compliments of past battles and past conquests. Their laughter sounds as human as anything.

"Tell me one of your own." Liam keeps insisting, the both of them sitting bare-foot on the bed, books and papers scattered around them.

"Ha! Maybe when I finish one." says William.

"What? You've got hundreds of poems." Liam frowns.

"Just the same one over and over, really. Gotta get that one right first." William tosses an olive up in the air and catches it in his mouth.

"Bollocks." says Liam.

William frowns at him in amusement with his use of the B-word.

"Just trying it out." shrugs Liam. "It does sound potent. Feels good in the mouth." He frowns. "I'm thinking about rephrasing that."

William just chuckles, then yawns and stretches, laying back on the pillows.

"Sorry. Long day. Longer night." he says. Then he looks up. "I'm glad that you're trying, you know."

"I'll try anything twice." Liam shrugs and smiles.

"Usually it's dead after the first time though." William says.

"Not if you play carefully." Liam raises his brow. "Then again, being careful doesn't always get you the most out of something. A certain degree of control can get your foot in the door. But after that, it should just be you and... what you want." He looks out the window, at the lights over the bridge, snow neatly topping off every surface. "Maybe I should have understood that earlier. I just couldn't see it yet. Didn't see that dark is... just another light. Hmm, maybe that could go in one of your poems, Spike?"

Liam turns to look at William, whose eyes are closed, his mouth a little open, his chest slowly going up and down. He is asleep.

Carefully, Liam gets off the bed and looks down at his friend's exhausted body for a few moments, before covering him with the lush bed sheets.

His face bent close to William's, he whispers it in his ear.

William's eyelids flutter for a second, unseen by Liam. They flutter because William dreams. But he doesn't dream far. Doesn't need to.

As Liam kisses him on the temple in the St Petersburg hotel, William glides through a stack of space-time layers. A kaleidoscope of Liam, Angelus and Angel unfolds as a multiverse behind his eyelids.

William sees his life stretching out in all directions, only a few faces that keep turning up everywhere he looks. His travel companions through the ages and through dimensions.

Even when the sun has become enormous and red, he has eyes to meet with his own, just before the big final burn-up of everything.

Hell, just maybe they will decide to make an effort and put that be-all end-all of all endings back a few millennia. Surely, that would be a worthy scuffle. And one person he would want on his team, is already with him. Right now, he feels like he could live on for another 9 billion years.

What will music sound like in 9 billion years? Will he be whistling a tune in the face of the red giant? If they fail, or if they won't care, will his lips burn before he finishes?

Bugger all that. His hand will carbonise into that of Angelus as they stare into the deepest red that could possibly exist. That's all that will matter by then.

Shadows of falling snow cast on the walls of the hotel room. Liam lies down close to William and wraps an arm around him. His eyes still open, he decides there and then that he won't let anything come between them again. The promise soothes him into a smile, then into sleep. Eyes closed, he sees the dark for what it is. Everything is so very much greater now. He involuntarily squeezes William's hand. Then a dream catches him and away he is.

Ding!

To Harmony's yelped surprise, the elevator doors slide open by themselves, just when the tech crew were getting a blowtorch ready.

"Thanks, Harmony." Angel smiles at her generously as he and Spike come striding out of the elevator.

"Knew we could count on you, luv." Spike tips an imaginary hat at her.

"What? Did I do it? Did I fix it?" Harmony looks perplexed and a little annoyed.

"I don't know. The important thing is that it's fixed." says Angel, still looking very pleased. "Take the rest of the afternoon off."

Harmony gawps at him for a second, then breaks into an excited smile. "Thanks, boss! You're the best!" She then peeks at her clipboard. "Uhm. I'm afraid you missed your two o'clock appointment with the Gargnars."

Angel waves it away. "Send them an appropriate sacrifice and reschedule for next month."

"Next... month?" Harmony is stumped.

"And cancel my agenda for this week." Angel smiles, starting to follow Spike down to the canteen. "Something big came up."

As she shoos away the grumbling tech crew, she glances at Angel and Spike walking side by side down the corridor.

Funny. For a second, while the doors had been opening, it was as if they were being together. Like, really together, with looks and eyes and stuff.

Harmony smiles giddily as she turns on her high heels and goes off to enjoy her afternoon.


End file.
